


The AI and the Rage Monster

by Anonymous



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Love at First Sight, M/M, Other, Protective!Hulk saves JARVIS, author is having a weird day, between an AI and a rage monster, so have a weird fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 06:17:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1156137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of an artificial intelligence who has seen enough to know that his very existence would put the world on edge, who would be labelled a monster if anyone ever figured out just how powerful he truly was, and who knows what it means to protect a misunderstood genius. So really, what chance did his silicon heart ever stand when the Hulk--who knows exactly what it means to be a monster and a protector--smashed into his world?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The AI and the Rage Monster

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man, did you know AO3 had an anonymous option? This changes _everything_.

Tony came to with a raging headache and a ringing in his ears, and it was a few seconds before he could make out any other sounds.

"...and the intruders have all been neutralised," JARVIS was saying when he did.

"How many bodies, J?" Tony asked. It wouldn't normally have been his first question, but he knew it would be Bruce's when the physicist came back to himself.

"Eleven after you fell unconscious along with the sixteen from before," JARVIS replied. "However, only six of those were the Hulk's doing."

"Really?" Tony raised an eyebrow.

"The other five were, shall we say, _accidentally electrocuted_ when one of them attempted to extract you from your armour."

Tony sat up and looked around. There was water all over the floor. JARVIS must have turned on the sprinklers before electrocuting everyone. Which means that the Hulk would also have been electrocuted.

"Hulk okay?" Tony asked.

"I think he enjoyed it," JARVIS replied. "It may have tickled a bit, but I knew it wasn't going to hurt him. I've seen the studies."

Tony was aware that his AI had at some point found files on the experiments that the army had conducted on Bruce, but he had not shared them with his human. Tony had not asked, because Bruce didn't want him to.

"JARVIS smash," the Hulk chuckled.

"I take it you've met?" Tony asked.

"Not formally," JARVIS replied. "Pleased to make your acquaintance Mr Hulk."

The Hulk frowned. "Hulk not puny mister," he growled.

"My apologies, glorious Hulk, smasher of evil intruders," JARVIS corrected, with only a hint of sarcasm.

"Glorious JARVIS," Hulk replied appeased. "Clever words, Protector of Tin Man, Destroyer of Bad Gun People."

There was a silence.

"Sir," JARVIS said. "Last year you said something about making a room for the Hulk, full of smashable things and other items he may enjoy."

The Hulk perked up at this.

"I recall..." Tony said, not sure where this is going.

"Well, I took the liberty of designing and commissioning the room. Shall I show him to it?"

There was another silence. "You... uh... sure, why not?" Tony smiled to hide his confusion. _When in doubt, smile_ had always been a mantra.

JARVIS remotely turned on a toy helicopter Tony had been tinkering with in the lab. "Hulk, if you'll follow--"

But he didn't need to finish the sentence, because the Hulk leapt after the helicopter with glee.

Tony frowned, unsure of what had happened.

"J--"

"Do you require assistance removing the rest of the armour, sir?" JARVIS asked.

"Uh... yeah, yeah sure," Tony said.

 

***

 

"I know you're trying to distract me," Tony groused at JARVIS, after he cleaned up. "No, I do not want to see the undoubtedly ground-breaking progress you've made on modelling the solutions to the Riemann Zeta function. I want to see this room that you've apparently built _in my tower, without my knowledge_."

It wasn't that Tony didn't trust JARVIS--he did, he trusted him every day with his home and his life, but this was the first time JARVIS had kept something so big from him, and really, what could Tony do? He was a scientist; he was curious.

"Very well, sir," the AI returned flatly. He lit up a series of lights leading to the elevator. Tony followed the lights, going down two floors and then down a hall he hadn't actually been to in years.

As soon as he saw the Hulk's room, Tony understood why JARVIS hadn't wanted to show it to him. There was a one way glass wall to the room, like many in Stark Tower, and though the sound was cut off, it was obvious that the Hulk and JARVIS were having a _moment_. The Hulk was looking intently right at a hole in the wall Tony instantly recognised as one of JARVIS's speakers, though few others in the tower would have realised that. After hearing something Tony couldn't hear, the Hulk grinned and grunted a response Tony equally couldn't make out.

"Oh," Tony said. 

"Indeed, sir."

After a few minutes, the holographic display turned on, this time showing a scene in Stark Tower. Tony saw the image of himself pale, shocked, and paralysed, and he realised immediately that this was moments before Obadiah Stane would rip the arc reactor out of his chest--the time Tony had been brutally murdered right in front of JARVIS, the AI as paralysed and helpless as his human.

JARVIS never talked about that horrible day. He was much more private than Tony was about it. This was--

"JARVIS--" Tony started.

He was interrupted when the ground shook as the Hulk pounded down on the holographic image of Stane repeatedly with his fist until JARVIS made sure the image was flattened on the ground.

"JARVIS, what is going on?"

"Dr Banner's alter ego and I are having a conversation."

"Clearly. About?"

"Protection." JARVIS's tone made it clear that he considered Tony's question ridiculous.

And Tony supposed he was right; the answer should have been obvious. JARVIS and the Hulk were, after all, both born to protect. Their worst fears were the times when they couldn't protect those they held dear. 

Tony felt like an intruder.

"Right," Tony said, backing out of the hallway. "I'll leave you to your... guardian angel stuff, or whatever."

 

*******************

 

"Why'd you build the room?" Tony asked, when he settled back into the lab, after the SHIELD agents had cleaned up the mess.

(Tony, of course, told the agents that he was the one who electrocuted everyone. He refused to show them footage from the attack. He shuddered to think how SHIELD would respond if they knew JARVIS could take that much initiative.)

"I learned from the best," JARVIS said smugly. On one of the video screens, he played a clip from one of the SHIELD helicarrier's security feeds-- _You should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R &D, you'd love it, it's Candyland_.

"That's not the same thing at all!" Tony argued. "The lab was already there, I didn't just go build--"

Before he could finish that sentence, JARVIS pulled up the transaction receipts to most of the equipment in Bruce's lab, with the time stamps highlighted. Several of them happened just before the Battle of Manhattan, when Tony was on the Helicarrier with Bruce. The rest happened right after, when he was rebuilding the labs.

"Okay, touché," Tony conceded. "Wait a sec, does this mean you've been coming onto my boyfriend?"

"Sir, I have footage of every single interaction between you and the Hulk. My analysis shows that even as your relationship with Dr Banner developed, your friendship with the Hulk has remained purely platonic. So no, I have not been coming onto _your boyfriend_ , if you must."

"Okay, fine. I suppose we can share."

 

*******************

 

“Hey Bruce,” Tony said, a few days later, when Bruce had come to terms with what happened during the attack. “I think my AI might have fallen in love with your alter ego. And it might be reciprocated.”

“Huh,” Bruce said, not looking up from his calculation. “Okay.”

 

*********

 

“Uh, Tony?” Bruce asked a few hours later.

“What’s up?” Tony looked up.

“Who’s ‘Pretty Voice’?”

“What?”

“The, uh, Hulk. He wants to go to _his room_ and talk to _Pretty Voice_? Any idea what that means?”

“Yeah, that would be JARVIS.”

“The Hulk knows JARVIS?”

“Uh, did you miss the part where I said they might be in love with each other?”

“That... wasn’t a joke?” Bruce asked weakly.

“Would I really--actually, I probably shouldn't finish that thought. But yes, I think JARVIS might have a crush.”

“I wouldn’t put it so crassly, sir” JARVIS said.

Bruce opened and closed his mouth. “JARVIS, you do realise he’s a monster made of rage, don’t you?”

All the screens in the lab lit up with videos of Hulk working with the team, catching Iron Man out of the sky, giving Black Widow a boost, blocking shots aimed at civilians.

Then apparently satisfied with how he made that point, JARVIS replaced them with a video of the attack on Stark Tower from a few days prior. Instead of focusing on the Hulk, however, the video focused on JARVIS’s own actions--turning on the sprinklers, and using the Iron Man armour and the sprinkler water’s conductivity to electrocute everyone.

“Did you know that I intentionally keep the ionisation of the water in the sprinkler systems high enough to be able to do that?” JARVIS asked.

And Bruce understood. Because JARVIS knew what a protective rage was more than anyone else, and really as for the monster part, there were surely many who would consider a house that intentionally filled its sprinkler system with salt-water in case it might need to electrocute people, well, terrifying, to say the least.

Bruce looked at Tony, wondering how he felt about this.

“Better love story than _Twilight_ ,” Tony shrugged. Then he frowned, thinking of something. “But next time he comes out, I’m going to let your green roommie know that if he breaks _Pretty Voice_ ’s pretty silicon heart, Tin Man will be very upset with him.”

“Mr Stark, it’s hardly necessary to--” the pout could be heard in JARVIS’s voice.

“I’m sure he’ll understand,” Bruce said.

 

 

*******************

 

Over the next few months, Bruce had started letting the Hulk out to play with JARVIS nearly every day, and he and JARVIS had designed a communicator for Bruce to keep around his neck so that the Hulk could talk to JARVIS during battles, too. In the intervening time, Bruce had never once expressed disapproval of the Hulk's relationship with JARVIS, which was particularly interesting given his reservations about his own relationship with Tony.

"You know, I'm surprised you're so chill about this whole Sound and the Fury thing," Tony said, taking a sip of his coffee.

He and Bruce had taken a break from the lab, and wandered around the city until they found an out-of-the-way coffee shop.

"The Sound and the Fury?" Bruce made a face. "That's even worse than _guardian boyfriends_ "

"I'm working on it," Tony said. "But seriously, how are you this unfazed?"

"Aren't you?"

"Yeah, well, your enormous green roommate and my artificial intelligence? Of course _I_ think that's awesome. _You're_ the one who's all 'stay away from the monster' and 'I'm exposed, like a nerve' all the time." Tony said, making exaggerated air quotes.

"Are you jealous of your own AI?" Bruce raised an eyebrow.

"No! Well... No. But I'll have you know that _I_ have had a long-term committed relationship before, which is more than can be said for a certain AI."

"So not jealous, just worried that I might think JARVIS is a better boyfriend than you," Bruce teased. "Reasonable thing to wonder. After all, _he_ didn't poke me with a pointy thing..."

"He _electrocuted_ the Hulk the day they met!"

"He knew it wouldn't hurt. He did his research."

"What--so did I! I was the only one on the damn Helicarrier who knew you weren't just going to blow up from a mean word."

"You really are jealous aren't you?"

Tony pouted.

Bruce relented. "I trust JARVIS with the Other Guy because JARVIS is backed up on at least twenty-three secured servers all over the world, fifteen of which nobody--not even you--has access to. And the Hulk isn't a hacker."

Tony snorted at the mental image of the Hulk hacking on a computer.

"So," he said, sobering. "You like JARVIS because the Hulk can't smash him."

"Yes," Bruce said matter-of-factly.

Tony sighed. He had thought that Bruce might come around to trusting the Hulk, following Tony's own fine example, but they had lived together for months, and progress on that front had been slow.

"And besides," Bruce smirked. "JARVIS has a cool accent and can calculate Clebsch-Gordan coefficients six times faster than you can."

Tony squawked with indignation and opened his mouth to make a counter-argument, but Bruce leaned over the coffee table to cut him off with a sweet, reassuring kiss, ignoring the teenagers at the next table who were attempting to photograph them discreetly, but hadn't quite mastered the art of subtlety.

"I love you, you idiot," Bruce whispered. "Stop looking all green-eyed at JARVIS. That's my job."

 

*******************

 

It all came to a head three months later.

Bruce woke up from the battle still standing up, though his upright position lasted less than a second before he found himself collapsed on top of a hard, smooth object. He blinked, confused.

Oh, right, he was on top of the Iron Man armour.

He closed his eyes again, settling into place.

Wait. _What?_

Bruce jumped back, startled. He remembered a quick flash--a plane crashing right into the red and gold suit crashing right into a building and--he looked up and could see the dent in the building where his friend must have crashed and he remembered-- _Iron Man down_ Captain's voice coming out of the communicator the Hulk now wore around his neck--

"Dr Banner, Dr Banner, please I can't open the armour--" JARVIS's voice still coming out of the communicator.

The voice snapped Bruce back into the present.

"JARVIS, is he breathing?" Bruce asked, grabbing the face plate of Tony's armour and snapping it off.

"He stopped breathing thirty-seven seconds ago."

Without checking to see if Tony was responsive (he wouldn't be, JARVIS would have tried that already), Bruce tilted Tony's head up to open the airway. 

"Breathing?" he asked JARVIS again, after he'd opened the airway. Bruce could check for himself, but asking JARVIS was quicker and probably more accurate.

"No, sir," JARVIS answered despondently, while Bruce found the manual release to the armour.

"It's stuck," JARVIS told him, just as Bruce discovered the same for himself, and of course Tony would have found a way to allow JARVIS to access the manual latch to the armour. 

"I can see that," Bruce said, looking around for a stray piece of metal to use to pry the latch open. It didn't take him long at all to find it--the entire vicinity was covered in all sorts of debris--metal debris, smashed body parts--but Bruce put off figuring out what had happened in order to focus on how he could help Tony.

Bruce worked open the latch and started the modified version of CPR that he and Tony had devised, working around the arc reactor.

Thankfully, Tony woke up roughly twenty seconds later.

"Oh thank god--" Bruce said. "How are you feeling?" 

"Like I've been smashed into a wall, which is to say, like it's Tuesday," Tony said attempting to sit up, but wincing in pain, before letting Bruce help him lie back down. 

"JARVIS, is it Tuesday?" Tony asked, and Bruce just knew he was really checking that JARVIS was not too upset.

Only then did Bruce allow himself to really survey the damage. And there was a lot of damage. The debris he had seen earlier had been from several cars, smashed to bits. But worse than the cars were the people. Hydra agents, Bruce knew, but he wouldn't have been able to tell--four of them have been smashed beyond recognition, just piles of bones and flesh and cloth. As he looked, Bruce had flashes of memory--sheer fear and rage he hadn't felt in a long time.

 _Holy shit,_ Bruce breathed in fear and confusion. The Hulk hadn't done this much damage in ages. Ever since Bruce had really come to terms with both sides of himself, the Hulk had only come out when Bruce asked him to, destroyed whatever dangers were threatening Bruce or his friends with minimal collateral (for an enormous rage monster), and retreated into Bruce. 

But this wasn't that. This was pure, blind destruction, smashing people and property beyond recognition. This was something Bruce had hoped never to see again.

"I have to go," Bruce said, barely above a whisper.

"Wait, what?" Tony said, attempting again--and failing again--to sit up. He must have sensed that Bruce intended to leave for good. Tony was always too good at reading him.

"I'm sorry, Tony" Bruce said. And he was. But if this sort of thing was happening again, he had no choice.

"Dr Banner, please let me--"

"JARVIS, make sure the ambulances arrive soon," Bruce said unnecessarily. "He may look fine, but he was unconscious--"

"I understand basic emergency medical protocol, Dr Banner. Please, let me explain--"

"I'm sorry," Bruce spoke to the pendant-speaker that connected him to JARVIS. He knew that JARVIS cared about him--both parts of him--and that JARVIS had let him see parts of the AI nobody else saw. Bruce, of all people, understood what that meant. "But there are a lot of people who could get hurt, and JARVIS, _I can't_."

With that, he took the pendant-speaker off his neck and left it in the palm of Tony's armour, while the man inside the armour was still attempting to reason with him.

 

*******************

 

Bruce always had an escape plan up his sleeve--or three--and the rest of the Avengers were still wrapping up part of the battle, so it wasn't difficult to hotwire a vehicle and make his way out of the city.

He had abandoned the vehicle an hour out of New York when he heard the public phone ringing on the street. He ignored it and kept walking.

It was only the third time a phone started ringing that he picked up.

"Look Tony," Bruce started speaking without checking who had called. "I know this hurts and I'm sorry, I really am, but you saw the damage out there, you know this wasn't just protection, this was sheer rage, blind destruction, the sort you've never seen before, but I _have_ , and I don't know what happened, but I lost control today and I _can't let that happen again_."

"I was worried that you had thus misinterpreted the situation, Dr Banner," JARVIS said. "But I'm afraid it wasn't the Hulk who lost control. It was I. I understand if you have to leave, but please don't blame your alter ego for what was my fault."

Bruce huffed. "I think I can recognise the handiwork of giant green fists, JARVIS."

"What JARVIS means is that it _was_ protection--" Tony's voice cut in.

"Mr Stark, I am having a conversation--"

"I know, and I'm hijacking it. I do that sometimes," Tony cut in. "Bruce, the point is that the Hulk smashed those people and those cars to protect someone. You've just never seen him protecting an AI before, because he's never been friends with an AI before." Tony had a strange sort of pride in his voice as he said "but that's what he was doing, Bruce; he was protecting JARVIS."

"How does that even work?" Bruce narrowed his eyes.

"The agents he smashed were already dead. JARVIS killed them. After I passed out, JARVIS was understandably upset. Using the signals from my armour, he remotely accessed the surrounding cars, started them, and crashed them into the Hydra guys who were closing in, effectively killing them. That's when the Hulk showed up."

"He must have realised that it would look suspicious if driver-less cars had started themselves around Mr Stark's unconscious body and crashed themselves into the hydra agents _after the Captain already said that Iron Man was down,_ " JARVIS continued for him. "So he destroyed the evidence to make it look like _he_ was the one who had smashed everything."

"That doesn't make any sense," Bruce argued. "The Other--the Hulk doesn't think about clean-up. He doesn't think about how scenes would look to forensics people afterwards. That's not how he works."

"He was frightened for my safety. A silly notion, I assure you, as I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, but I have often seen Mr Stark and yourself protect each other from things from which the other didn't need protection. You cannot fault the Hulk for behaving similarly. He is only human."

"But I can still taste his rage..."

"I am quite certain what you're tasting is fear."

"Same thing--"

"No, Dr Banner, I don't think it is. He was concerned about me, because he knew that I had exposed myself more than was safe."

And then, Bruce did remember--the fear, flashes of fear, mental images of soldiers entering Stark Tower, hacking at wires, blowing up processors (how did the Hulk even know that JARVIS ran on processors? Much less what processors even looked like?), Ross interrogating Tony Stark about JARVIS, hackers at the Pentagon, looking through lines of JARIVS's code. Bruce understood that fear on a deep primal level, the fear of what people do to people they don't understand.

"I--" Bruce said. But he had to take a breath. It was just too much, and it was all coming back to him.

"Do you understand, now?" JARVIS asked.

"Yes," Bruce said. "No. I--I don't know what to do."

"You could come home," Tony suggested. "Have this touching conversation in the Tower."

Bruce sighed, because in _what universe_ did he find it _comforting_ to learn that the Hulk had not mindlessly, but rather intentionally destroyed evidence? This one, apparently.

"Yeah, I suppose I could. But JARVIS?"

"Yes, Dr Banner?"

"If you break his heart, I'll hurt you."

"I wouldn't expect any less," JARVIS said.

"Aw, how sweet," Tony said sarcastically. "Now come back before your shawarma gets cold!"

Somewhere in the recesses of Bruce's mind, the Hulk sighed happily.


End file.
